


Patroclus Fights All Monsters

by MalcolmInSpace



Category: The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Hockey, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, M/M, The Iliad, Trojan War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:14:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4659246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalcolmInSpace/pseuds/MalcolmInSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a new student comes to school, Patroclus falls hard. His new crush will push him to new activities, but an inter-school rivalry threatens his new happiness.</p><p>A high school AU with hockey, monsters and fluff. Inspired by Scott Pilgrim and Percy Jackson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Burning for You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thethreebroomstix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethreebroomstix/gifts).



On the second day of grade eleven Patroclus fell in love with a guitarist because he apparently was determined to be a complete stereotype.  The Hydra was unexpected, though.

It was a sweltering evening, the heat of the day holding on as the moon rose over the grassy field outside Mycen High.  The stadium seating had been moved off the lacrosse field and placed in a semi-circle around a makeshift stage.  A huge bonfire roared in the centre of the ring, sending a pillar of light and sparks and cedar-scented smoke into the night sky.  It was the first school spirit event of the year, and everyone was there.  The band was rocking and the school was spirited.

Patroclus was standing with his back to the bonfire, staring up at the stage, and had just fallen fully completely in love.   The guitarist looked tall, even heroic up on stage and the light of the fire turned his olive skin into gold.  One eye was covered by thick, wave blonde hair while the other was half-closed in the rapture of the music.  He was dressed in skinny jeans that hugged muscular thighs and a sea-blue t-shirt with a vee neck deep enough to show a few curly chest hairs.  He swayed with the beat, and Patroclus swayed with it, feeling the music connecting them.

"His name's Achilles," Odie said at Patroclus's side, pitching his voice through the music and the noise of the crowd.  Patroclus nearly jumped out of his skin and Odie laughed.  "Something got your attention?" He laughed even harder to see Patroclus blush and draped one arm around his friend's shoulder.  "His name's Achilles," he repeated, nodding towards the guitarist who was now improvising back and forth with a trio of drummers from the drum corps who'd joined the band on stage.  "He's a senior, just transferred from Pelion Secondary because of the catchment changes.  I hear he's gods' gift to hockey, too.  The Atreusons must be thrilled."

Patroclus wasn't really listening. He was too caught up in the swing of Achilles's hips and the way he held his tongue between his lips as he played and fall of his hair across his deep brown eyes.  The music rose up, up, up and the drums tattooed into a crescendo that raised the hairs on Patroclus's arms and neck and the guitar raised a chord that hung in the hair for a long, impossible moment and then... one moment of silence before the crowd erupted into applause and a scatter of uncoordinated chants of "Mycen-HIGH!  Mycen-HIGH!"

The guitarist took the mike and spoke, and his voice, even through the distortion of old speakers and crowd noise, went straight down through Patroclus's skin and lodged in his bones.  "Thank you all.  My name is Achilles and we are We Are Lions!"  He waved one hand to his band and his metallic nail polish winked in the firelight.  "On the drums, Eudorus!”  A slight boy with long, curly hair did something complicated with his drumsticks and rolled off a complex riff with a playful cymbal crash.  “On the bass, Big Ajax!”  A brawny girl with dark skin that was lustrous in the firelight, an infectiously mischievous grin, and box braids past her waist.  She repeated the drummer's riff and added a flair to the end.  Achilles pointed to the drum corps members standing to one side, grinning and sweating under their crested Chalcidian helms.  “And you know your own Mycen High Hoplites!”  The cheers were thunderous, which is why no-one heard the actual screaming until the hydra smashed into the field.

It was a massive like a rhinoceros but moved with avian grace.  It moved on its muscular hind legs and kept its long, clawed forelimbs tucked up.  The length of its neck was mirrored by the stiff tail held out behind it.  It smashed through the bleachers, sending students and debris flying, then scrambled atop the bonfire.  It stood unharmed by the flames and raised its head to give a long, ululating scream.  “DRAGON,” someone screamed, and the panicked stampede began.

Patroclus stood frozen in place, staring up up up at the monster that reared above him.  Absently he noted the bright scales patterning its underbelly.   It looked down at him and its jaws opened wide, and he could see a glow building in the back of its throat.

Odie knocked him aside seconds before the monster spat a glob of flaming goo, sending chunks of burning grass and dirt blasting across the field.  The students had mostly retreated and were standing watching at what they thought was a safe distance.  Some of the teachers, led by Mr. C, were trying to make order out of chaos.  The monster sucked in another breath, and Patroclus knew it was going to spit fire again.  Then its neck exploded, sending its severed head arcing through the air to land in front of the stage.

The chord hung in the air, shivering the night with the remnants of its power.  Achilles stood in the pose, one hand high, the other holding the neck of his guitar tight.  Patroclus could now see that the guitar had 'labrys' written across it in jagged pink letters.  People started to cheer, and Patroclus started to rush the stage, but Odie dragged him back.  “We have to get out of here,” he yelled, “that's a hydra, it’s not--”

The headless corpse thrashed to life, spilling burning logs out of the bonfire, and in a shower of ichor a new head grew from the ruined neck and spat a fireball at the stage.  Eudorus slammed his kick drum and rebounded the glob out into the night past the watching students, and the screaming started again.  Big Ajax started strumming a heavy D note, and the air around the stage shimmered as she conjured up a shield.  Achilles began to shred, and a blade of raw music began to form in front of his guitar.

“Go for the legs!” Odie was calling to the band, but they couldn't hear him.  Achilles blasted out the blade with the same results as before.  Only this time the monster didn't even collapse before it started growing another head.

“I thought they grew extra heads,” Patroclus said in Odie's ear.

“Not exactly.  Look!”  And Patroclus followed the pointed finger and saw that the severed heads were beginning to convulse and as he watched they shot out new arms and legs and tails until they were tiny copies of the hydra, tiny copies with oversized heads.  They would have been ridiculous if they weren't horrifying.  “We have to destroy them, now!  Before they get bigger!”

“I left my sword back in my dorm!  You got any ideas?”

“No, but I think she does!”  Lope, captain of the field hockey team, was hustling across the field towards them and she tossed them each a field hockey stick.  They were shorter than Patroclus was used to, but heavier.  He grinned at his friends, and they charged the first of the smaller hydras.  Patroclus was dimly aware that the band was trading shots with the hydra, explosions and chords lighting up the night.

The first of the smaller hydras saw them coming and turned to roar.  Odie sidestepped and hooked its legs out.  Patroclus tackled it, pinning it to the ground, and Lope dispatched it with a series of sharp, businesslike blows that crushed its skull.  There were times, whether on the pitch or there with the firelight and monster blood on her face, that Patroclus was reminded that sweet, round Lope was the latest in a long line of soldaderas going back before the Mexican revolution.

“Look out!” Odie yelled, and Lope lept aside as the second mini-hydra pounced.  Patroclus, still on the ground, didn't have time to roll away and the monster landed directly on top of him.  He got his stick up and jammed it into the monster's mouth before it could chomp him.  He could hear Odie and Lope yelling something, and more roaring from the hydra, but was too preoccupied not getting chomped to listen.  The monster's paws thudded against his chest and legs but its claws weren't grown enough yet to do more than scratch.  Patroclus heaved and bucked until he pitched the monster off and before it could right itself he tackled it and wrapped his arms around its neck and hauled.  The monster squealed and writhed but Patroclus held on, forcing the blunt, reptile head back and back until **crack**.  The neck snapped and the monster went limp.  He dropped its body and retrieved his chewed and splinted stick.

The band was duelling with the hydra, but its fireballs were almost more than they could defend, and every time Achilles blasted the hydra the severed parts just became more mini-hydras.  Half a dozen, including the first one they'd killed, now ringed the fire, forcing Lope and Odie onto the defensive.  Patroclus ran to help them.

“This isn't working!” Odie said, almost to himself as the trio was forced back against the stage.  “Time for a new plan.  Hold them here!”  And with that he turned and scrambled onto the stage.  Patroclus and Lope were too busy fighting for their lives against the snapping jaws of the mini-hydras to watch Odie, though Patroclus couldn't help but watch Achilles from the corner of his eye.

The music changed.  Eudorus was deflecting the fireballs away, and Big Ajax had shifted from D to E, dropping her shield and making the air around the hydra shimmer.  Achilles jumped down and stood beside Patroclus (he smelled like cinnamon and sweet sweat) and began riffing blasts of music into the ground, driving the mini-hydras hissing and roaring back towards the fire.  Patroclus and Lope herded the flanks until all the monsters were pinned onto the bonfire.  One of the mini-hydras screamed, and the large one turned its attention away from the stage.  Patroclus felt his heart hammer as it looked at him, and then lift as he looked at Achilles.  He gathered himself to leap at the monster.  Maybe he could--

And then Odie began to sing.  It was his greatest gift, his voice, a rich dramatic baritone that had no business coming from his wiry frame.  He reached out with the song and snared the hydra, wrapping soft loops around its neck and legs and gatherings its spawn at its feet atop the bonfire.  The hydra swayed back and forth and began to make a rumbling croon, like a giant cat.  It was a sad song, gentle and regretful.  Odie looked to Big Ajax and nodded once.  She braced her feet, squared her shoulders and played a heavy note, drawing it out.  A bubble appeared around the bonfire, trapping the hydras within.  Cut off from the song, they instantly began to rage and slam themselves against the bubble.  Sweat began to bead on Big Ajax's forehead and the tendons stood out in her neck as she played, holding the bubble.  Then Achilles joined her, then Eudorus and together they forced the bubble smaller and smaller until all that could be seen was fire and writing scales and then--

An explosion.

It was contained within the bubble but the shockwave still knocked everyone from their feet.  One of the bleachers, already damaged by the hydra, collapsed.  The night was silent.  A scorched pit and a few embers were all that remained of the bonfire and the monsters.  Then the cheering started again, and the watching students, those who hadn't fled too far or been hurt, mobbed the field.  They lifted Achilles and Big Ajax and Eudorus and Odie onto their shoulders like conquering heroes.  Patroclus slipped aside and watched.  He ached to be one of the ones to touch Achilles's hand or leg or... He swore, just for a moment, before the teachers and late-arriving emergency services people began to break up the ground, he saw Achilles look his way and smile.

Lope was standing beside him, he realized, watching Odie with a half-smile and laughing eyes.  It was the same way he'd looked at her the day she'd scored the winning goal and led her team to victory over the hated Mount Ida Cavalry in the finals.  Love and exasperation in equal measures.  She muttered something in Spanish, squeezed Patroclus's hand once, and then waded into the crowd to fetch Odie.  Patroclus stood alone, basking in the fading glow of the bonfire, the victory and most of all, of Achilles.

It hadn't been a random monster attack, of course, as they discovered later.  The Horsefaces, as the students of Mycen High referred to the students at Mount Ida Academy, the expensive private school across town with whom there'd been a rivalry for decades, had lured the monster onto school grounds and used the distraction to deface the Mycen High trophy room.  The Atreusons, two brothers named Agamemnon and Menelaus, were incensed and swore revenge.  Agamemnon was captain of the ice hockey team, with Menelaus as his bruiser, and they plotted how to ruin the Cavalry at the season opener.  Their rage only got worse when Helen, who Menelaus had sworn to make Prom Queen with him (despite her very evident lack of interest in him), changed schools to Mount Ida and started dating Paris, the insufferably handsome and charming and (though no-one said it around the Atreusons) much more pleasant than Menelaus younger brother of Hector, the captain of the Cavalry ice hockey team.

None of this mattered at all to Patroclus, whose interest in competitive sports was restricted to track and other non-team sports and who did his very best to stay out of the inter-school rivalry nonsense.  He spent the first month of school hanging out with Odie and Lope, trying to break the sprint record set by someone named Pheidippedes twenty years before Patroclus was born, and doing an increasingly bad job of hiding his crush on Achilles.

It began to matter on a crisp morning as the season turned from summer into fall.


	2. Ice to Meet You

Patroclus was walking across the big field behind the school, heading inside from practice and with the sweat on his bare arms and legs cooling quickly.  It had a been a good run, and his attention was focused inward as his breath slowed and the endorphin high began to fade which is why he didn't notice when he walked right through a pickup game of ultimate frisbee.

Patroclus caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, not enough for him to brace himself.  Not that it would have mattered.  The sight of Achilles hurtling towards him with a look of furious concentration would have frozen him to the spot no matter what.  Achilles caught the frisbee in mid-air and collided with Patroclus on the way down, driving them both to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

They wound up with Patroclus flat on his back and Achilles straddling his hips.  Patroclus was vaguely aware of laughter in the background from the other players and spectators, but he was only aware of the furious crease of Achilles's brows, the weight across his thighs, the warmth where their skin pressed together.  Achilles opened his mouth to speak, to curse out someone for interrupting his game, and then recognition blossomed and his rage turned to delight.  It was like the sun coming up after four weeks of Arctic winter midnight.  Patroclus gasped to see Achilles smile down at him.

“You!  You're the one who helped with the hydra!”  Achilles said.  He was leaning over Patroclus, their faces only feet apart.  He looked up as someone else, someone utterly unimportant to Patroclus, said something and he grinned again.  His curly blonde fringe fell across his eye and his flipped it back.  He stood and offered his hand to Patroclus.  His grip was firm, warm, and Patroclus watched the play of his muscles as they helped each other up.  “I never got your name.”

“I'm, uh, I'm Pat,” Patroclus said, sure he sounded a babbling fool, but Achilles just smiled again and Patroclus realized their hands were still clasped.

“Well, Pat, I'm Achilles, but my friends call me Ace, so I'd like it if you would.”  One of the other frisbee players spoke, but Patroclus heard only buzzing.  “Yeah,” Achilles responded (he still hadn't released Patroclus's hand), “see you tomorrow.  Tryout's at four, right?”

Tryout at four?  That meant...  “You're trying out for the hockey team?” Patroclus asked in a rush.

“Yeah.  I played a bit at Pelion S, so I thought I'd go.  How about you?  You a hockey player?”  Patroclus must have said something, because he felt his mouth move, but he was having a hard time keeping a grip on reality.  “Great, see you there.  Maybe we'll both make the team!”  And then he jogged off and Patroclus watched him go for a long time.

Odie clapped him on the shoulder and Patroclus nearly died, which just made Odie laugh even harder.  “You got plans tomorrow, Pat?” Odie asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, I'm trying out for the hockey team?”

“Uh, you're what?”  It took a lot to leave Odie speechless, but then his gape turned into a sly smile.  “Of course you are.  C'mon, let's go find Lope and get you a refresher.  We want to make you really _ace_ that tryout, right?” And his laughter pealed across the grounds at the burning blush in Patroclus's cheeks.

 

The rink echoed with voices, scrape of skates on ices, and the clatter of three dozen teenage boys and girls skating around and slapping at pucks.  Then Coach Phil, short and irascible as ever,   whistled the event to order.  He moved around (without skates but never unsure of his footing) and broke up the applicants into groups.  One group, which included the Atreusons and Lope, was clearly the players who'd be making the team more or less by default.  Another included the ones who could barely stand up or make a lap or demonstrate to Coach Phil the dedication he wanted, the ones who'd shown up for fun or dreams.  The third group was the one who got Coach Phil's full attention, the ones who had potential.  It included Achilles, of course, but somehow also Patroclus.  He felt on edge, and failed to see the pun.

They ran drills.  Shooting drills, skating drills, stickhandling and passing until Patroclus was sure the ice would melt at his touch.  He was fast and nimble and had the stamina of a runner so he excelled at skating.  His passing was weak and he struggled at team drills, but in truth no one was looking at him.

They were looking at Achilles.

He skated like liquid fire and his shot was incredible.  He could thread a pass to anyone, even (or perhaps especially?) Patroclus.  His speed made Patroclus feel like he was moving in slow motion and when everyone else was wheezing Achilles stood tall.  It was, Patroclus thought, profoundly unfair.

Coach Phil was impossible to read, even in the face of a prodigy like Achilles.  He just grunted and scratched his stringy chin beard and chewed liquorice sticks (the joke was that it was actually pieces of pucks).  He made notes and called drills and looked generally unimpressed.  The Atreusons were less subtle.  Patroclus could see them cackling to themselves at the prospect of him on their team.

After what felt like days but was probably hours Coach Phil called the session.  He growled out a few last words and dismissed everyone.  The results would be up the next Monday.  Patroclus skated off in an exhausted fog.

 

Monday morning came, and Patroclus had managed to convince to himself he didn't actually mind that he wouldn't be making the team.  He'd never wanted to anyways, right?  Playing street hockey with Odie and Lope was one thing, but still he felt his heart race as he walked through the big doors into the school.  The single-eyed lion in stained glass above the door stared down at him with implacable serenity as he passed.

A crowd had gathered around the bulletin board, would-be players and friends and boyfriends.  Brownian movement brought them all from the outer fringe to the press at the wall and back out again.  Patroclus joined the flow and soon enough found himself reading the list up close.  Not in the C team, nor the B.  When he found his name under “A Team, Forwards, RW” it took a few seconds for the words to stop swimming across the page and make sense. He passed the first half of the day in a fugue. A few weeks ago the heights of his hockey aspirations had reached to weekend afternoons in the lane with Odie and Lope, and now he would be competing against the best teams in the state. All because of _him_. Assuming he didn’t get cut.

“A lot of you,” Coach Phil said the assembled players the next day at the first practice, “are going to get cut.”  The flat, almost bored tone did little for Patroclus’s nerves.  He felt like he was swimming in his gear and like it was too tight and like he could barely move. “About half of you won’t be here next week, so if you don’t think you can make it just save us all the time and leave now.” Nobody moved.

Where Coach Phil looked disinterested, the incumbent players were a lot easier to read. They were all lined up behind the coach. Agamemnon and Menelaus looked somewhere between amused and hungry as they sized up the rookies. Menelaus hulked even more than usual in his goalie pads. Lope had this closed, intense look that Patroclus recognized as her game face. He’d just never seen it directed at him before.

And then there was Achilles. Patroclus was doing his best not to stare, but… some people are born to wear armour. His wavy mop was gathered back into a bun, aside from a single strand that had escaped to lie distractingly across his cheek, and he had this casual grin, like he was just happy to be there. He also hadn’t appeared to notice Patroclus’s existence.

Coach Phil clapped his hands once, and the echoing slap dragged Patroclus’s attention back to the matter at hand. “Alright, let’s see some breakaways. Ascalaphus, you’re up first.” Agamemnon slapped his stick across his brother’s pads and they shared a grin. Agamemnon, Lope and the other returning players skated to one side and the applicants to the other while Menelaus headed for the net until Ascalaphus, a ninth-grader who looked small even in his gear, was left alone in the centre of the rink.

Menelaus settled himself in net and Coach Phil blew his whistle. Ascalaphus got the puck on his stick and skated.  Menelaus came way out of his net to challenge and obscure the net. Ascalaphus came in at an oblique angle, building up speed. He came in close and started to cut across the crease, forcing Menelaus to drop into butterfly and slide laterally with him but Ascalaphus pulled the puck back and around in a spinning backhand attempt to stuff it in. Against another teenage goalie it might have worked, but Menelaus kicked out one leg and deflected the puck away off his skate. Still, it had been a good attempt and the rookies saluted Ascalaphus with a clattering of sticks on the ice.

So they went down the list. It took a while before anyone came as close as Ascalaphus. Menelaus used his size and positioning to simply block most shots, and his aggressive challenging of the skater intimidated a lot of shooters. A few kids lost the puck while trying to deke, or slipped and fell, or just froze up and put the puck right into Menelaus’s chest or glove.  One kid tried the Forsberg dangle, but Menelaus just swatted his stick away. Big Ajax was the first to score and she did it without any finesse, she just wound up from the hash marks and slapped a booming slapshot under Menelaus’s glove hand. Eudorus was next and he skated right in close, pulled Menelaus out of position with a faked spin-o-rama and flipped the puck up between his legs and over Menelaus’s outstretched blocker.

Finally it was Patroclus’s turn. He skated to centre ice and faced Menelaus. He had a plan. The adrenaline fizzled in his veins and pulse thundered so loudly he almost didn’t hear the whistle.  He started out slow, letting Menelaus come all the way out as he did, and Patroclus exploded with every ounce of speed he could muster. Menelaus was caught off-guard and flat-footed and struggling to get back in position and Patroclus curled by him to see and empty net. He pulled his stick back to shoot and-

He didn’t quite grasp what had happened for a moment, he just realized he was lying face-down on the ice.  There was an ache across his shins. His momentum took him awkwardly into the boards behind the net and he sat up.  Menelaus, he realized, had chopped him across the shins with his heavy goalie stick before he could shoot and sent him sprawling.  He clambered to his feet, cheeks burning, and skated back to the other players. He glanced sidelong at Achilles, but Achilles was focused solely on Menelaus.  “Nice try,” Ascalaphus muttered as he went by.

The last few skaters took their shots and even though came close to scoring Patroclus noticed with a bit of satisfaction that Menelaus didn’t move quite so far out of his net any more.

“Alright,” Coach Phil said, in the same dryly disinterested tone he’d had at the beginning, “Achilles, you’re last.”

Achilles skated out with a casual air and when the whistle blew he powered up the right side with ferocious acceleration. Menelaus stayed deep in his net, expecting Achilles to move in close and catch him moving. Unfortunately for him, that’s not what happened. Achilles curved in towards the net and as he passed the red dot his right leg came up behind him, putting all his weight forward and

PING

The blessed sound as the puck hit the crossbar over Menelaus’s shoulder and deflected into the net. There was a stunned silence. He hadn’t even wound up and still his wrist shot was faster than the eye could follow. Then the rookies broke into cheering and mobbed Achilles like he’d just won the game in overtime. Menelaus looked stunned, like he couldn’t believe what had happened. Agamemnon was grinning wide, and Lope was doing her best not to look too impressed.

Patroclus joined the scrum around Achilles, and he couldn’t help but be cheered by the bubbling excitement. He filtered through until he was at Achilles’s shoulder and tried through a tied tongue to say, “Nice shot.” He must have said something intelligible, or at least audible, because Achilles turned, put one gloved hand on Patroclus’s head and bumped helmets. Patroclus could see Achilles’s eyes through the bars of their face cages, bright and glittering brown and just for an instant they were his whole world.

Then came Coach Phil’s shrill whistle and he yelled, “Alright, calm down. Let’s try some scrimmages. Penelope, Agamemnon, you’re captains. Pick teams and let’s play!” Agamemnon picked Achilles first, of course, and Lope picked Patroclus a few rounds later.

They played. It was scrappy, messy hockey without systems or set lines or any real attempts at defensive responsibility, and it was glorious fun.  Even after Agamemnon caught Patroclus crossing the blue line with his head down and levelled him so hard Patroclus heard Don Cherry scolding him.


	3. A New Challenger

The weeks passed almost unheeded. Three practices a week, and every Monday the cut list went up and every week Patroclus was almost giddy to realize he wasn’t on it.

“So,” Lope asked him over lunch one October day, “is being on the team everything you hope?”

“Yes!” Patroclus said, then stammered and lowered his voice. “I mean, yes. It’s great.”

Lope smiled warmly. “It helps that you’re pretty good at it.”

“But not as good as Blondie, eh?” Odie smirked around his sandwich.

Patroclus felt his face heating up and ducked his head. Lope just snorted. “If that boy doesn’t go top five in the pro draft next summer I will eat an entire puck. Unsalted.”

“I heard he’s being scouted by at least ten different teams,” Ascalaphus put in. He’d sort of organically fallen in with Patroclus and thus by extension Odie and Lope, even if he was still a little starstruck by Lope.

“So the rumour says,” Lope said neutrally. There was an odd edge to her tone, something only an old friend would catch.

“Who needs rumours when you can just ask him yourself,” Odie asked with an impish smirk, and pointed past Patroclus’s shoulder. “The enigma appears.”

Patroclus looked and beheld. Achilles was passing through the lunch room, pack over one shoulder and hair tousled and damp from the showers. Patroclus’s heart lurched, but he rose and walked over. Achilles, popular as he was, kept himself at distance from his schoolmates and even teammates and Patroclus rarely even saw him in the halls. He opened his mouth to speak, and Achilles turned, saw him and smiled.

And then a vision in pink came between them. Clytemnestra, the school’s champion fencer, with another girl – a red-haired girl Patroclus didn’t know, on her arm. “Hi Ace,” said brightly, “This is my friend Pyrrha. She’s been _dying_ to meet you.” Patroclus deflated as he saw Achilles close up and start to retreat. Clytemnestra, if she noticed, carried on chattering and dragged Pyrrha with her. The trio passed out into the hallway, and Patroclus slouched back to his table.

“Sorry, Pat,” Odie said sympathetically. “Clytemnestra never lets an opening go un-foiled.” And he chortled at his own pun. “Because, fencing, right? She fights with a foil, and she just _foiled_ -“

“Yes, we got it,” Lope said flatly. “It just wasn’t funny.”

“Yes it was,” Odie said, leaning on her arm and batting his eyes up at her, “I can see it in your eyes.”

“That’s part of my soul dying.”

“That’s just as rewarding.”

“Well,” Ascalaphus said, “she really put a _hilt_ to your jokes.”

Odie laughed and Lope sighed. “Don’t encourage him.”

“Oh, but I need the encouragement,” Odie said with mock tragedy as he gathered up the debris of his lunch, “what with the epic journey I must undertake.”

“What epic journey?”

“Field trip with Mr. H.  I shall be gone many years at sea, you know.”

“Good.”

“I’ll probably pass the time listening to one of Circe’s dissertations on how all men are pigs.”

Lope snorted. “She’s not wrong, you know.”

Odie made a face. “I know, but it hurts our delicate man-feelings.”

“Would you leave, already? I want to start attracting suitors.” Odie grinned, kissed her on the cheek, and walked off whistling. A moment later Ascalaphus mumbled something about study hall and left.

Patroclus sighed, and Lope put her hands on his. “You’ll get your moment,” she said sympathetically. “Just give it time.”

“Thanks. I just…” he waved his hand absently.

“I know.” She scowled. “And don’t mind Clytemnestra. She just thinks if she can hook Achilles with one of her minions she can rope him into her High School Alpha Clique with Agamemnon.”

Patroclus rolled his eyes. “Why did she even start dating him again? He’s awful to her.”

Lope’s scowl turned contemplative. “He is. But her parents have very specific ideas about social hierarchy and her place in it, and she’s just trying to live up to that. Being treated well doesn’t really factor in.”

There was a pause, the comfortable quiet of good friends. “So,” Patroclus ventured after a moment, “How did you and Odie…? I mean, you were together even before I moved here and I guess I never asked.”

Lope smiled fondly.  “I didn’t know anybody when we moved up here after my mom was given command of the base. There weren’t any other army kids around, and I guess I was lonely. Odie made me laugh.” She grinned at the memory. “He found out how much I love old Mexican pop and he’d sing all these cheesy ballads to me. His accent was atrocious, and he insisted on using the Castillian lisp when he found out how much it annoys me. He made me laugh, and we became friends. The rest evolved from that.” She squeezed his hand again. “That’s the important thing, yeah? If you can be someone’s friend before you’re their boyfriend it makes the more-than-friends part better, and stronger.” The bell rang, sawing through their moment. “Come on, let’s get to class. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow morning, yeah?”

 

The sun was almost setting by the time Patroclus traipsed across the school yard to the on-campus dorms where he and the other students whose parents were away or _away_ like his lived. A four-story building of brown brick mostly covered in ivy and graffiti. The pipes rattled, the hot water ran out fast and it was almost unliveable in the summer heat. Patroclus loved it. He loved having his own room, his own space, he loved the cracked pavement behind it where he played ball hockey with his friends, he loved the aging couches in the lounge that almost swallowed a napper whole and most of all he loved the view from the roof at sunset.

He quickly checked for teachers, then climbed onto then dumpster and jumped the five foot gap onto the bottom of the fire escape ladder. He swayed, suspended in mid-air until the ladder decided it wouldn’t fall and then climbed up.  He worked his way up the fire escape as quietly as he could. The dorms were two-thirds empty this semester, but he’d still gotten reported by some busybody on the second floor. Mr. C, the teacher responsible for overseeing the dorms, had given Patroclus a perfunctory talking-to, but clearly just for form’s sake. Mr. C got that the kids living in the dorms all had reasons they weren’t living at home, unlike some others, and let the little stuff slide.

Patroclus climbed past his own window on the third floor, past the shuttered windows on the fourth and hauled himself up onto the roof just as the sun kissed the horizon and turned the sky orange. It was, as always, sublime.

“Oh, hey, Pat,” said Achilles. Patroclus almost fell off the roof.

Achilles was sitting with his back to the chimney stack, watching the horizon. He had his hockey gear and school bag dumped unceremoniously around him and a well-loved acoustic guitar across his lap. He smiled faintly at Patroclus and scooched over. Patroclus swallowed and sat, trying not to break out in a cold sweat. “You come up here a lot?” Achilles asked, not taking his eyes off the sunset.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. I like watching the sunset.”

“That’s cool.”

“Yeah.”  The silence stretched out, and Patroclus wracked his brains for something to say. “Um, is that why you came up here? For the sunset?”

Achilles shrugged and stroked his hand along the neck of the guitar, raising a faint sound. “I guess. Not really. Mostly just looking for somewhere quiet.”

Partroclus quailed inside. “Oh, am I bothering you? Should I…?”

“No! I mean, no, it’s cool.” Achilles smiled without making eye contact. “I’m just avoiding… distractions, you know?”

“Oh. You mean, distractions like Clytemnestra and her friend?” Achilles rolled his eyes and nodded, and without actually intending to Patroclus heard himself saying, “Yeah, that Pyrrha’s so distracting, she’s a real red _hair_ -ing.”

Achilles didn’t react at first, and Patroclus wanted to curl up and die of embarrassment, but then Achilles smiled, and then he grinned, and then he put his head back and laughed and laughed and they were both laughing and it had nothing to do with Patroclus’s godsawful pun. They wound down into giggles and Achilles wiped a tear from his eye. “That was terrible,” he said with a grin.

Patroclus shrugged. “Too much time listening to Odie, I guess.”

“Odie? That’s the guy who’s dating Penelope, right?  Odysseus, yeah?”

“Yeah, that’s him.  He’s been my best friend since I moved here after my dad… after my parents sent me here.” If Achilles noticed the stumble, he didn’t press. “He likes to make people laugh. If he even brings up the horse joke, don’t let him finish. It’s a trap.”

“Oh, okay.”

Patroclus could see Achilles retreating back into himself and desperately tried to keep the conversation going. “So, uh, everybody’s saying you’re going to get drafted real high next summer.”

Achilles shrugged and started to noodle softly on his guitar. “Yeah, probably, I guess.”

“Your parents must be pretty happy.”

“I guess.” Achilles frowned down at his guitar and started playing actual chords. Patroclus could feel the air start to energize, and pebbles around them started to wobble. The tune sounded a lot like the shield chord Big Ajax had played the night the hydra attacked. Then he stopped abruptly and the energy went like a bubble popped. “My mom would probably be happy if I gave up hockey, went to college for real. My dad… it’s the only I do he really pays attention to, you know?” Another pause, and Patroclus could see the tension in Achilles’s hands where he was gripping the neck of the guitar. “You ever do something, and no matter how much you love it you can’t help wondering if you’re actually doing it for someone else?  Like, you’re doing it because you think that’s the only way they’ll notice you?”

Patroclus nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

“And how’s that working for you?”

“You tell me,” Patroclus blurted without thinking, then froze.

Achilles’s head snapped up, so fast his hair fell across his wide, surprised eyes and they were looking at each other through the curtain of his golden curls. “I think it’s working,” Achilles said with a slow, crooked smile.

Patroclus was aware of how close they were, how their hands were almost touching, of the shine of Achilles’s eyes and the shape of his lips. The moment stretched on and on and Patroclus could feel his heart about to beat out of his chest and then he said, “Do you want to go to the mall?”

“I… what?” Achilles’s expression turned to confusion. “Like, now?”

Patroclus swore at himself. “No, like, on the weekend. Lope and Odie and I usually go and hang out and get slushies and…” Oh sweet Aphrodite help me, he thought, I’m babbling. “You could come hang out with us and it might be nice.”

Achilles frowned like this was a matter for serious thought. “Yeah, being mall rats might… Wait.” His head snapped up and around towards the school. “Do you hear that?”

Patroclus looked over and said, “It’s probably just…” Then he heard it, faintly on the wind, the clash of metal on metal and shouting. “Is that fighting?”

“Yeah, it is.” Achilles stood in one fluid motion and slung his guitar across his back. “Come on,” he said, and pulled a spear from his hockey bag. “It might be another hydra or something.”

Patroclus, terrified but inspired, pulled his xiphos and aspis out of his pack.  Achilles grinned at him and it was an expression unlike anything Patroclus had seen, wild-eyed and showing too many teeth. “I’m ready,” he said, and Achilles slapped him on the shoulder.

They turned and jumped off the roof. Their impact put a few more cracks in the sidewalk, and then they were off.  Patroclus felt the joy of the run bubbling up inside him, and he laughed as he passed Achilles.

He rounded the school and slammed into an overturned car.  He shook off the impact and then froze as he took in the scene. Three vans with the Mount Ida Academy logo idled in the parking lot, and a dozen students wearing private school uniforms under their armour were attacking the front doors. A handful of Mycen High students, led by Clytemnestra still in her fencing gear, were in a defensive knot and fighting hard but Patroclus could tell they were outmatched. As he watched, one Mycen High boy took a shield rim to the face and went down.  He crawled away, and was scooped up by one of the circling harpies for transfer to the nurse’s station.

Then Achilles arrived. He came thundering around the corner and cleared the car in a single bound. He charged roaring into the Horsefaces and their whole line recoiled. He downed three of them before they even realized he was there. Patroclus sucked in a breath and followed him in.

As he passed the car and entered the battle zone his vision shimmered a bit and then shifted, like a video changing quality mid-stream. “New player!” he heard The Announcer proclaim, and then the status bars – health, defence, power – popped into pixelated existence over everyone’s heads.  Patroclus raised his shield and charged.

A Horseface saw him coming and braced, but Patroclus just barged into him shield-first and sent him staggering. A chunk of the boy’s Defence bar flashed and disappeared, and Patroclus followed up with a lunge the slipped past his guard and took him in the chest. A scarlet CRITICAL appeared and rose up over the boy as he distorted and then despawned. He’d wake up at home with a murderous headache in a few hours. The XP gain notification flickered in the corner of Patroclus’s vision and he grinned.

The Horsefaces were giving ground.  Achilles had despawned at least three, and his counter-charge had given Clytemnestra space to reform the Mycen High students into a proper line and advance down the steps.  Patroclus hurried to join the line and found himself locking shields with Iphigenia, Clytemnestra’s little sister. Her health bar was under half but she had a creditable war face on.

The Horsefaces scrambled to form a line of their own, and the numbers were almost even now. Achilles prowled back and forth between the lines, spear over one shoulder, with a restless energy Patroclus didn’t recognize. Achilles abruptly lashed out with his spear, striking a Horseface plumb on the shield with enough force to buckle the line. “Fight me!” he yelled. “Who’s got the guts, huh?  Fight me!”

“Alright, pretty boy, let’s fight.” The Horseface line split apart and reformed as one of their number stepped out. His face was covered by his helmet, but there was no mistaking sound of that voice or the width of those shoulders. Deiphobus, the only student to fail grade 12 at Mount Ida Academy and be allowed back. Twice.  He was tied to a whole host of unsavoury rumours, and one of which should have landed him in prison. He towered over Achilles.

Achilles actually seemed to relax, like he’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted, and he dropped into a fighting stance, loose and nimble on the balls of his feet. It looked like a ridiculous mismatch. Deiphobus was three years older, with the muscle mass to show it, where Achilles still had the lanky build of a teenager. Deiphobus was armoured, with helm and shield and lynothorax where Achilles wore only a t-shirt. And yet Achilles was utterly without fear or tension. Just coiled purpose. Patroclus could see the doubt in Deiphobus’s eyes. But just for a moment.  Then he raised his shield and advanced.

Achilles let him come, still with his spear over his shoulder. Then, almost faster than the eye could follow, Achilles span the spear over his head and lashed out with the weighted pommel at full extension. Deiphobus got his shield up to block, but the impact shook him and before he could adjust Achilles brought his spear whipping back and around and slashed out from the other side.  The speartip drew a red line across Deiphobus’s sword arm and a segment of his health bar winked out. Deiphobus roared in fury, got his shield up and charged at Achilles, who rolled aside and flickered a spear thrust at Deiphobus’s knee, but the Horseface parried with his heavy sword.

They circled each other, testing. Achilles used his speed and reach to jab at any exposed part of Deiphobus, feet and shoulders and eyes, but Deiphobus was settled behind his shield and even if he wasn’t as fast as Achilles he was faster enough to keep up. Deiphobus, for his part, sought to get inside the reach of Achilles’s spear and finish the fight with a swing of his butcher’s sword. It looked like the fight would inevitably swing to Deiphobus. He was armoured and bigger and fresher and all he had to do was block and wait for Achilles to make a mistake, while Achilles had to keep up a constant offence. Sure he would tire out. Unless…

“He’s baiting him,” Patroclus said, only realizing he’d said it aloud when he caught Iphigenia’s puzzled glance. “Achilles, he’s baiting Deiphobus. Look how he keeps letting his spear slide off the outside of Deiphobus’s shield instead of just retracting it.”

Iphigenia frowned. “Are you sure he’s not just getting tired?”

Patroclus grinned wolfishly. “Have you seen him play hockey? I’m sure.” He didn’t see Iphigenia roll her eyes at him. He _did_ see the doors to the second Mount Ida van swing open and another wave of Horsefaces jog out to reinforce their line, but it didn’t seem important. Achilles was like a young god, grinning wide and plastered with sweat.  But, what were those three doing…?

Deiphobus took the bait. He took Achilles’s spear thrust on his shield, waited for Achilles to slide it off the outside and then he slammed his shield wide expecting to knock Achilles’s spear aside and open him up for the deathblow, but instead Achilles used the momentum to spin his spear around until it was reversed and sidestepped Deiphobus’s thrust in one movement, then crack Deiphobus in the head with the half of his spear like it was a kendo stick. Deiphobos went down in a boneless heap. The last little segment of his health bar blinked maniacally, inviting Achilles to finish it and he raised his spear to oblige.

The Horseface line wavered and Patroclus felt the Mycen High students ready to charge. And then he saw what was happening behind the Horsefaces. “Achilles!” he yelled as he ran forward, “Down!”

Achilles didn’t hesitate, he just dropped to the ground just before the violin trio rozened up and shredded the air with shrieking blasts. Patroclus slid down in front of Achilles and held his shield up. He winced as a rising scale slammed into him.

“Hi there,” Achilles said from a few inches away. They were pressed together, huddled behind Patroclus’s shield. “This happen a lot around here?”

Patroclus was taken aback by Achilles’s casual tone, but did his best to match. “You think this is bad, you should see them during the playoffs.”

“I think you people might take this rivalry too seriously.”

Patroclus couldn’t help but smile. “That’s what I’ve always said. And yet here I am.”

Achilles returned the smile. “And here you are.”

Patroclus glanced around. The Mycen High line had formed a tortoise against the violin assault, but they wouldn’t hold long. A pair of Horsefaces had run forward and were dragging the moaning Deiphobus back to the vans. “This isn’t looking good.”

“Nope.”

“Any ideas?”

Achilles shrugged. “Charge? I’ve heard respawning isn’t so bad.”

“I heard it sucks.”

“Only one way to find out.”

Patroclus looked into Achilles’s eyes and realized that the prospect didn’t scare him so much, as long as Achilles was near. He nodded and gripped his sword. “Yeah. Okay. On three, yeah?”

“Yeah.

“One. Two. Thr-“

There was noise somewhere between a foghorn and the world ending. The violins squealed to a stop and before they could start again the noise attacked the air again, knocking the whole Horseface line sprawling. Patroclus looked up and saw Ascalaphus standing on the school steps having musical congress with a tuba almost as big as he was, and beside him stood Odysseus holding his giant bow and from that bow shot arrows. He was loosing as fast as he could and each arrow found its mark until the entire Mount Ida phalanx was piling into their vans and peeling away.

The battle zone collapsed as the Horsefaces retreated and Patroclus felt the sudden rush of XP gain followed by weariness as the exertions and bruises caught up with him. The others were all the same. Iphigenia sat down and then lay down and Patroclus couldn’t help but smile as he watched Clytemnestra tenderly pick her up and cradle her. Odysseus walked over with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “First blood to Mycen High, eh?”

“More like to Achilles,” Patroclus retorted, and the others cheered in response.

That’s when the Atreusons arrived, and Agamemnon scowled deeply to see the fighting won and Achilles being proclaimed. They were dressed in full war gear and had almost twenty other students with them, similarly attired.

“Hey, Agamemnon,” Odysseus called, “Come to help clean up?  If you’d dressed a little faster you could have seen Achilles defeat the great Deiphobus!” The students with Agamemnon whispered amongst themselves and Agamemnon’s scowl was only outdone by Menelaus’s look of tooth-grinding fury.  Achilles looked somewhere between proud and sheepish. The restless, caged-feline energy he’d had in battle was gone and he was poised again. Patroclus realized now that that reserve had less to do with being standoffish and more with if not shyness then a wary nature.

Agamemnon stepped forward, glaring daggers at Odysseus, then lifted his hands and voice to encompass the watching students. “My friends, Mount Ida attacked us, and we beat them back! We have taken first blood this season! Now let’s hit them while they’re reeling! We raid tonight! Those of you with cars, get them. As many as we can! Achilles,” he continued, pitching his voice so that all could hear him, “You shall ride shotgun with me!” Menelaus turned in an interesting shade of purple at the idea he’d have to ride in the back of his brother’s truck.

Everyone looked at Achilles expectantly and Achilles scowled at the attention. “No.”

That one word hung in the air. “I… _what_?” Agamemnon was stunned, and that turned quickly to anger. “No? _No?_ Are you too good to fight with us?” He sneered. “Or are you just scared of a real fight?”

There was a rising flush creeping up the back of Achilles’s neck, and when he spoke his voice was tight with anger. “I am afraid of no fight or fighter, but I am not here to fight your battles. I’m here to play hockey and graduate. I’ll protect my friends,” and here he took Patroclus’s hand and Patroclus almost died, “but I’m not going to help you with this vendetta. I’m just here to play hockey.”

Agamemnon spluttered some and then turned his back and shouted orders at the other students. A few, the Atreusons’ closest cronies, glared their spite at Achilles and Patroclus but most of the others were clearly caught between Agamemnon’s standing in this high school hierarchy and fear of fighting without Achilles.

Odysseus walked over and leaned in close, speaking in confidence. “Are you sure about this, Achilles? He’s captain of the hockey team. He could make trouble for you.”

Achilles shrugged. “And lose the best hockey player this school’s seen in decades?”

“Sure, but what about… your friends,” he said, glancing at Patroclus and their still-clasped hands.  Achilles lowered his head and bared his teeth like a lioness about to pounce and Odysseus leaned back, hands up in a warding gesture. “Okay, okay, relax. I’m just trying to warn you, as your friend.” When Achilles didn’t respond Odysseus sighed and slumped his shoulders. “Fine, your call. But no matter what Agamemnon says, kids are going to get hurt in this raid. Mount Ida’s got serious defences, and even without the ones we took down here, even without Deiphobus they’ve still got enough fighters to make it ugly. Hell, they’ve got _Hector_. If you were there, they’d feel a lot safer. _I’d_ feel a lot safer.”

Achilles quirked an eyebrow at when Hector was mentioned, but just shook his head. “So stay. Don’t follow Agamemnon’s idiocy.”

Odysseus looked down, then up to meet Achilles’s eye. “I can’t. If I go, maybe I can stop Agamemnon from going too far, or at least keep some of the younger ones out of the worst of it.” He grinned ruefully. “If Hector doesn’t despawn me, Lope’s probably going to.” He turned to go, but Achilles stopped him.

“The mall.”

“I… what?” The brief hope in Odysseus’s eyes was replaced by confusion. “The mall?”

“Yeah. Patroclus mentioned the three of you hang out there on weekends. I’d like to come, if that’s cool.”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.  That sounds fun.” He grinned, his humour reasserting itself, and turned to go with a last wink at Patroclus that made him blush to the roots of his hair.

They stood and watched while the other students piled into cars and trucks and peeled out across town. They stood there, holding hands, until the night was quiet and the moon was shining full. Patroclus failed to contain and yawn, making Achilles laugh which turned into a yawn. They walked home together and almost kissed outside Patroclus’s door before Achilles turned and went up to his own room.


	4. We Will Rule the Mall

Saturday came in a rush. Patroclus was sitting in the upper food court, leaning on the railing guarding the drop into the lower area, trying to tune out the not-argument Odie and Lope had been having since the raiding party had limped back from Mount Ida. Hector and Paris had been there to lead the defence and it had gone… poorly. Agamemnon and his circle, and even a few outside, weren’t quiet about blaming Achilles for not joining them. Menelaus had lost his shit (as Odie put it) when he saw Paris and probably would have torn the younger boy apart if Hector hadn’t stepped in and despawned Menelaus. Not having his brother around just seemed to make Agamemnon more vicious, not less.  Patroclus couldn’t tell if Lope was more angry Odie’d almost gotten skewered on a Horseface spear or that he’d gone into battle without her.

Then Achilles showed. He was wearing a bulky hoody and his hair was an unstyled mess damp from the rain, and he was beautiful. Patroclus bounced to his feet and said, somewhat to his own horror, “You totally came!”

Achilles pulled the earbuds out of his ears and said with a wry half-grin, “I totally did.”

They stood for a second, smiling at each other and not speaking, until Odie coughed loudly. “Oh, right,” Patroclus said in a rush. “Have a seat.” They slid into the metal mesh chairs across from Odie and Lope and Patroclus worked really hard not to acknowledge the dirty smirk Odie was directing at him.”

“Hey Lope,” Achilles said, if not warmly than at least chill. “Odysseus.”

“Hiya, Ace,” Odie said. “You can call me Odie. All my friends do.” He paused, frowned. “Except for Las. That guy was a douche.” Achilles looked confused, and Patroclus kicked Odie under the table. From the boy’s expression Lope had done the same, but he recovered smoothly and grinned at Achilles. “But I have it on good authority you are not, in fact, a douche.”

“Oh. That’s… cool,” Achilles replied and lapsed into silence. Patroclus tried to will Odie into spontaneously combusting.

“So,” Lope said into the silence before it could get truly awkward, “Slurpees?”

There was a chorus of agreements and they shifted out of their chairs. Lope took Achilles’s arm and led him away, a slightly comical sight given the eight inch height difference between them, insisting he tell her all about Pelion City and leaving Patroclus staring after them, feeling slightly betrayed.

Odie put an arm over his shoulders and steered him forward with a chuckle. “Relax, dude. She’s breaking the ice. Your boy’s a little awkward without a spear or a stick in his hands. _Really_ great hair, though. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I am spoken for in words that’ll outlast the seas.  Besides,” he added as Achilles looked back over his shoulder to Patroclus, “he’ll be dying to talk to you again by the time Lope’s done with- uh oh.”

Lope and Achilles had swerved over to the railing and were looking down into the lower food court. Patroclus and Odie joined them, and Odie swore under his breath. There, lounging around a table like they owned the place were three teenagers with the unmistakable aura of privileged disdain. Hector, Paris and Helen.

Patroclus had only ever seen Hector at a distance and even then usually in hockey gear.  Instead of armour, Hector was wearing something that just looked expensive that flattered his height. He was square-jawed and slickly groomed, growing into the muscle of adulthood. His younger brother Paris was even more beautiful, but there was a sour edge to his features. Helen sat beside Paris, every inch the long-legged beauty Patroclus remembered. She’d grown her afro out even more so that the curls brushed her shoulders. She’d always had an unapproachable poise about her, but now she looked more annoyed than remote.

Odie nudged Lope and nodded towards Paris and Helen. “That ship may not be sailing so smoothly after all, eh?” Lope just snorted and turned her back.

“So that’s this Hector I keep hearing about, huh,” Achilles mused. He was staring with great focus, enough to make Patroclus nervous.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Patroclus said, then added, “I didn’t realize how handsome he was until now.”

Achilles didn’t respond for a moment, then looked up and grinned. “Not for me. He’s so slimy I’m surprised he doesn’t slide right off his chair.” He chuckled, then resumed frowning down at Hector. “So what’s their deal, anyways?”

“Seriously? They’re MacPriams. Their dad owns like the entire east side of town. And Horseface Academy.”

“No wonder they think they shit gold and roses. And this Hector guy is good?”

Odie snickered. “Everyone said he was going to be the best prospect from this town in a generation.”

“Do they now,” Achilles said, and smiled again, but this time it was that hard, feline smile he’d had when he faced down Deiphobus.

“Dirty, though,” Odie continued, like it was nothing. “Broke a kid’s ankle last year in a game against… Thracian Secondary, I think? He claimed it was an accident and the disciplinary committee agreed. Of course, half the committee works for his dad, and everyone knows it wasn’t an accident.”

Patroclus, looking for some way to change the subject off Hector, spotted Agamemnon entering the food court and pointed him out.

“Well, this should be entertaining,” Odie said dryly, then caught the glare Lope gave him. “I mean, trouble. This will be trouble.”

“Think we should back him up?” Lope asked.

Achilles shook his head. “No. If Agamemnon wants to make trouble for himself, I’m not supporting him. Besides, looks like he brought his own backup.” Indeed, a posse of Mycen High players followed Agamemnon in, including…

Odie whistled low. “Is that Menelaus? What is he doing out of respawn this soon? That can’t be healthy.”

Lope shrugged. “He’s an idiot, and always has been. I.. wait, is that Ascalaphus?” Sure enough, Ascalaphus was hovering around the back of the group and trying to look tough. Mostly he just looked nervous. “What is he _doing_?”

“Following his captain, probably,” Odie said, and they both glanced sidelong at Achilles, who was staring resolutely downwards.

Agamemnon swaggered into the food court and affected surprise to see Hector and Paris and Helen. He and his posse half-surrounded the table, and Hector managed to look even more arrogantly relaxed. Menelaus and Helen glared hate at each other. Agamemnon and Hector spoke, their words lost in the noise of the mall but meaning clear enough in their body language: posturing and provocation. Violence hovered in the air.

Patroclus glanced over at Achilles and saw his knuckles were white he was gripping the railing so hard. Patroclus slid over and nudged him. “Do… do you want to go down there?”

Achilles didn’t answer at first, then he let out a breath and straightened, rolling his shoulders and turning to face Patroclus. “No. No I really don’t.” He smiled like it was an effort and threw his arm over Patroclus’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get slurpies. And noodles. I want noodles.”

Down below, the MacPriams vacated the food court and made it look like they were insulting everyone watching just by moving.

It was, on the whole, a good day. Maybe the best day. They ate greasy mall food and window-shopped, sat too long in a coffee shop and picked through every disc and movie at the record store without buying anything. Achilles bought Patroclus a hat he liked and Odie immediately mocked. And most of all they were together, just hanging out and almost always touching, from the little brushes of hips and hands to holding hands Achilles’s arm over his shoulders when  they sat in a booth. Patroclus almost forgot about the way Achilles looked at Hector, the way a lion looks at wildebeest. They went back to Odie’s house and played video games until the dawn was breaking and fell asleep leaning on each other, heads touching.


	5. The Lonely End of the Rink

The days rolled into weeks and winter rolled in. A full foot fell in a night, wreaking havoc with the city streets and cancelling classes and soon a vast army of snowpeople covered the school yard in an epic recreation of the Battle of Crocus Fields. Lope insisted they were getting it all wrong and tried to stage manage everything and when ‘someone’ threw a snowball at her things quickly degenerated into a general melee.

The day after that, Coach Phil announced the final line assignments, and the day after that they had their season opening game against Thracian Secondary. And just before the game started Patroclus and Achilles had their first kiss.

The lines were little surprise to anyone. Lope was the top line centre, flanked by Achilles on her right and Ascalaphus on her left. The idea of a junior on the top line had caused some muttering at first, but the kid has a gift for threading the defense and getting in just the right place for a pass from Achilles or Lope, and they had the size to handle the physical play where Ascalaphus got out-worked. Plus, it was firmly established that Ascalaphus was one of Agamemnon’s now. That made Patroclus a little sad, as it had ended their nascent friendship. Ascalaphus was friendly enough, but the lines between Agamemnon and Achilles were too clearly drawn.

The second line was Eudorus centring Big Ajax and Patroclus. Patroclus had the speed and Big Ajax the strength to get open up the ice and given the opposition headaches, and Eudorus was a phenomenal defensive player, enough to usually cover for when his linemates got caught too deep when the puck went back the wrong way.

Coach Phil liked the top six/bottom six model, even if it was falling out of favour in the pro’s, and the third and fourth lines were the grinders and energy players, there to wear down the opposition’s top players and defend while the top lines handled the offense. Agamemnon led the defence corps as usual, though this year there hadn’t been many mobile defenders available and the defence was a little slower than Coach Phil would have preferred.

The season opener was a home game, and the arena was packed. A sizable contingent of Thracians were there, wearing their wolf-head hats, and the duelling chants were going strong before a single player touched the ice.  Harpies circled the rafters, ready to intervene if school spirit spilled over into violence. Swords and spears were checked at the doors.

Under the stands, the team waited and jittered and joked and sweated. The iconic galley logo on their jerseys looked especially sharp today, Patroclus thought. He and Achilles were at the back of the line, Agamemnon and Menelaus at the front, and soon enough Odie’s voice (he was as usual the arena announcer) echoed back as he introduced the skaters and the line shuffled forward as each player made their entrance.

Abruptly, too soon, it was almost Patroclus’s turn and in the grip of adrenaline and terror he lifted his face shield, grabbed the front of Achilles’s jersey and kissed him hard. It took Achilles by surprise, but he kissed back just as fiercely and then he was almost shoving Patroclus out the gate. Patroclus felt like his blood was on fire, like he had a thousand-volt wire running into his brain and it felt so _good_.

The game passed in a blur.  Patroclus got a goal and assisted on two more. Achilles got a hattrick to lead the team to a 6-2 win. The locker room afterwards was riotous, like a pressure valve had opened. They had played and they had won. Not just won, but emphatically so. The growing enmity between Agamemnon and Achilles was pushed back by the victory. Even Menelaus managed a smile.

Coach Phil walked in to this, cleared his throat once and the noise died away. “Good game,” he said in the same dry, unaffected tone. He didn’t even look up from his clipboard. “I’ll save the notes for practice, and we’re going to need it on Friday. Now go home.”

Friday. The word settled down into Patroclus’s stomach and churned. Their first game against the Horsefaces, and at Mount Ida to boot. There wouldn’t be any easy win against Hector and his team. But then Achilles took his hand and led him from the arena and Patroclus thought that maybe it would be okay. They ran across the moonlit snow, holding hands but not speaking, driven by some mutually understood but unspoken motive.

In Achilles’s room, they struggled out of snow-damp clothes and then Achilles was kissing him, slow and warm and pressing. His hands were gripping Achilles’s back, and Achilles was kissing his neck and then… and then…

Afterwards, they lay quiet on Achilles’s bed, warm with sweat and tangled into each other. Patroclus traced one finger down Achilles’s side and watched the goosebumps rise. Achilles shifted and sleepily murmured, “…tickles,” so Patroclus did it more until Achilles was clutching at himself and then trying to pin Patroclus’s wrists and then he was straddling Patroclus, holding his hands down over his head and kissing him again. Then he rolled off and they lay next to each other, their hips and hands and shoulders and heads pressed against each other, and they watched the snow fall outside.

After a while, Patroclus quietly asked, “Will you be careful?”

Achilles turned his head towards Patroclus and smirked. “A bit late for that, don’t you think?”

“I mean on Friday. You should be careful of Hector.”

Achilles scowled and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh. Him.” He was quiet for a while. “I’m better than him.”

Patroclus snorted. “I’m sure you are. But… he can’t be trusted. And Paris is even worse. They’ll do anything to win.”

Achilles rolled over and lay half across Patroclus, resting his head on over Patroclus’s heart like he was listening to it beat. “You don’t think I want to? That I won’t do what it takes?”

Patroclus stroked his hand over that thick blond hair. “Yeah, I guess. But you’d regret it later, hurting people who didn’t need to be hurt. They don’t feel bad. They don’t even see most people _as_ people.”

“Well,” Achilles said, “that’s what I have a team for.”

“It would help if your captain didn’t hate you. Agamemnon is looking for a way to-“

“Oh gods,” Achilles groaned, “I do _not_ want to talk about that dumpy prick.” He dug his nails into Patroclus’s side and Patroclus arched his back at the sensation. “Look, it’ll be fine. Whatever Hector and Paris want to pull, I’m just looking to play so I can get drafted and make my millions, yeah?”

Patroclus laughed. “Is that all? Think I can get a few of those millions?”

“Oh, well, only if you work for it.”

They didn’t get much sleep, but before they did, with Achilles dozing beside him and the first blush of sunrise creeping in the window, Patroclus convinced himself it would be okay. They would be together.

Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is curious, I based the appearance of the Hydra on a dinosaur called the Panphagia.


End file.
